


A Dart of Red

by Rubynye



Category: The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Ares3some, F/M, M/M, Multi, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M, Wet & Messy, mark has a terrible sense of humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 19:17:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5176637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark asks a favor that Chris and Beth are more than happy to grant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dart of Red

**Author's Note:**

> With so many thanks to PotofSoup, Dira Sudis, and Brighteyed Jill.
> 
> One day I'm going to write Beth's contraceptive/regulatory implant into a story, but I couldn't fit it into this one. For now, trust that she has it. 
> 
> Title from Robert Browning's "My Star".

"So this is really selfish," Mark says from the doorway, and Chris opens his eyes. His first sight is Beth's pointy elbow -- he was dozing with his forehead resting on her bicep, until Mark stepped onto their threshold. Chris pushes up on one arm as he blinks again, lifting his eyelids to find Mark leaning on the open door, arms folded, wearing socks and sleep pants, his chest bare and broad.

He looks better, Chris's doctor-brain notes absently, between the third blink and the fourth. His ribs don't stand out anymore, his pecs rise just slightly from the plane of his chest, all his visible skin is smoothly intact. His body's recovering. His face... looks tired, eyes glinting deep beneath heavy eyelids, mouth pulled down at the corners. Mark looks like a kid woken from a nightmare, tousled hair and all, Chris thinks as he finishes sitting up, as Beth squirms upright beside him.

"Yeah," Mark mutters. " 'M being selfish. That okay?"

Chris blinks one more time, knuckles sleep from his eyes, and looks at Beth to find her looking at him. She nods, and he nods in return before turning to look at Mark again, still propped in their doorway. "Come in already," he manages to mumble, and feels air shift and eddy around Beth as she waves Mark closer.

The edge of Mark's mouth tilts up five degrees off the horizontal, and he shuffles in, letting the door fall shut. "The thing is," he continues, "warning: photons," as he toggles on a side fixture. Light slants softly across the room, Beth makes a discontented noise and hides her eyes against Chris's shoulder, and Mark smiles a little more. "Sorry about that. Sorry for waking you up, but... I need to make sure I don't need waking up."

"Huh?" Chris responds intelligently, flailing his free arm encouragingly, but Mark takes just one step, stopping at the end of their bunk. 

"What," Beth adds brilliantly, sitting forward, and Mark reaches out to mesh fingers with hers. She slides her other arm around Chris, tucking her hand over his hip, and they pause like that for a few breathing moments, watching Mark shut his eyes and swallow hard, feeling him alive and here with them.

"I dreamed of Mars," Mark says eventually, looking down at his hand interwoven with Beth's. "Lying in my bunk between all the empty ones, while the Hab shook under the howling night wind. Or maybe I'm still there, dreaming of horning in on you two kids, trying not to hear the tarp flapping over the busted airlock." He shrugs a shoulder, raising dark haunted eyes. "I can't -- I can't get Mars out of my head." Chris musters up enough thought to reach out too, and Mark folds his free hand into Chris's, one for each. "Help me?"

"Yes," Beth says before Mark's done asking, pulling a little, enough to bend him towards them.

Chris tugs too, squeezing Mark's hand in full agreement. "Yeah," he echoes, feeling Mark's knee dent the mattress, watching his eyes open wide and hopeful as they reel him in. "Yeah, we can do that."

* *** * 

Mark's getting stronger, Chris's doctor-brain notes, as he pushes Mark's thigh back a little more, bare hand tucked behind his knee, as Mark trembles around Chris's two longest fingers sunk inside him. He's rolling his hips to meet each push, shuddering with each rub across his prostate, breathing in deep steady sobs as Beth pins his thigh down between hers and cups her clever hands around his face.

Chris keeps stroking with all the strength and speed surgery trained into his fingers, despite how the glove muffles his touch. It would be easier to do this with a toy, but they didn't exactly pack any marital aids this trip. Or he could fuck Mark, but just the thought of Mark clutching him inside and out makes Chris stutter in his rhythm and Mark's sobbing breaths hitch around the interruption. Beth's small round toes digging into his thigh are about as much distraction as Chris can handle as he gives it to Mark as hard as he can, as Beth kisses the tears off Mark's face and reaches down to curl her fist around his dick, as Mark starfishes across their bunk, crying out a fervent litany of curses and letting them have him.

Beth shimmies a bit as she presses her mouth over Mark's, her long sleek thighs slung either side of his thicker one, her little round ass tilted up just _so_ and Chris's neglected dick throbs, hard up against his belly. _Okay, Beck,_ Chris scolds himself as he holds his focus. Mark's ass is filling out nicely too, a little more padded over tensed hard muscle, and Chris slides his hand down Mark's taut thigh to the junction, pressing in the heel of his hand to feel firm resilience as he tilts his wrist another few degrees until -- 

Mark groans and arches his whole spine, his head denting the mattress and his fingers pressing into Beth's narrow waist, and Chris ignores the twinges between his carpals and keeps up his steady strokes, watching Mark's chest heave under Beth's arm as she recaptures his mouth. Errant tears swell and slide from his eye as shuddering waves surge through him; rolling his hips wildly into Beth's grip, Mark shoves into Chris's thrusts and cries out into Beth's mouth and comes hard enough to spatter all the way up his sternum, flexing so tight he tugs hotly around Chris's fingers. 

Chris starts to slow towards stopping, easing off the pressure, but Mark thrashes his head, hauling his mouth away from Beth's long enough to gasp, "Don't fucking stop, goddammit, please don't stop." Beth blinks dazedly, her lips tender and plumped, and Mark's eyelids flutter just enough for a glimpse of her before he submerges his pale fingers in her sleek dark hair, palming the graceful curve of her skull as he pulls her back into the kiss.

He's still shaking, only slowly softening in Beth's grip, his belly and chest gleaming with scattered drops in the slanted light. Chris's mouth waters and his dick aches impatiently, but he swallows hard, pulls in a long calming breath and exhales, "Shhh," as he pets the front of Mark's thigh, down and up and down again. "Shh," as Mark shifts his hips up and moans so deep Chris can feel as well as hear it. "Not gonna stop," he croons, rocking his wrist steadily, "We're not gonna stop."

Beth lifts her head just a bit, and Chris can only see her eyelashes tremble above Mark's fervent hand, but it's all clear in how she nods, how Mark moans, muffled by her lips as she kisses him again. He tenses all over, inside and out, and his voice shatters into a series of sharp-edged shouts, his whole body steel-cable tight for an exalted handful of heartbeats before he slumps and goes limp, his hand sliding out of Beth's hair to thunk down on his chest, his knee falling in against Chris's side.

Watching, fascinated on every level from doctor to crewmate to lover, Chris doesn't think to stop his rolling hand until Mark winces a little and waves palm-downwards, _enough, enough_. "Oh, oops." Chris pulls out, compromising between fast and gentle, peels off the glove and tosses it in the wastebasket.

Beth tips her head down onto Mark's shoulder and slides her hand up onto his belly, opening her eyes as she smiles at Chris, slow and triumphant. He grins back, shaking out his wrist and settling his hand around her ankle. Chin tipped upwards, Mark laughs, a little damply, a little sleepily, mostly happily, and rubs his knuckles across his eyes. "Fine, I'm fine," he answers Chris's unasked question. "Better than fine, I'm here, that was amazing. You're both amazing. Oh my fucking God amazing. Thank you. ... you just growled. Johanssen, that was seriously a growl."

Beth isn't smiling anymore, her eyes huge and very dark in her beautiful face, and between one blink and the next she launches herself at Chris, throwing her arms around his neck, sleek and hot all down his front. He wobbles under the impact, gasping a breath full of her sweet-salty scent, clutching Mark's calf to keep from falling backwards out of their bunk.

"Look at him," Beth really does growl, and kisses the breath back out of Chris, shoving up against him, her knees already tight around his waist. Mark's warm laugh fills Chris's ears as Beth fills all his senses. "Look at you," she mutters low between fierce kisses. "Look at you watching Mark with this _face_ ," and Chris can't begin to guess what his face did, doesn't care to care with Beth kissing him like this, except if he can figure it out maybe she'll just kiss him this way over and over the whole trip back. "Your eyes and your mouth and _just_ \--" He tries to open said mouth and Beth pretty much ravishes him, licking boldly between his lips as she rocks into a hot silky slide down the length of his beyond-ready dick. A groan wrenches out of him as he clutches both of them, arm across her shoulders and fingers dug into his calf. 

Beth rips her mouth away and Chris gasps, stunned by delight, her hair whisking along his cheek as she demands of Mark, "Look at him looking at you! Does he look like that when he's looking at me?"

"All the time," Mark tells her, smiling broadly, flopping his hand into a lazy beckon. "All the damn time. Don't fuck him onto the floor, bring him here so I can kiss him too."

Chris is still here, thank you very much, and reasonably sentient, and -- Beth shoves her heels into the mattress, rocking backwards, and hauls Chris with her, up onto his knees so he has to let go and catch himself, hands slammed flat to the bed. "Whoa," is all he manages as Beth twists and Mark grips his waist in both hands and they manhandle him onto his side, Beth's knees pressed to his ribs and Mark solid and damp down his back and ass and legs. Beth grins like laughing and rocks down onto him -- she can do it without looking, he's always been wowed by that -- and all Chris can do is make a strangled happy noise and press up into her slick heat.

"Like that?" she pants triumphantly, and _flexes_ around him, and Chris would be embarrassed by the squeaky heights his voice just climbed if he weren't too busy feeling Beth all around him and letting his limbic system drive.

"Sounds like he does," Mark rumbles, pushing a hand between them, palming Chris's pec, then Beth's breast. She shudders and Chris shudders with her, nose to nosetip, moaning helplessly. "Sounds like he likes it a lot."

"Shut up, Watney," Beth puffs, hot over Chris's aching needy mouth. He pushes forward, but she brushes the smallest little kiss onto his lips.

"Make me," Mark breathes over Chris's ear, chin tucked behind his jaw, arm wrapped beneath them around both their waists. Chris laughs breathlessly, trying to _think_ with his whole brain full of Beth rippling around him and Mark pressed up behind him. 

Beth's always been great at multitasking. Pushing one elbow beneath herself, she reaches over Chris's shoulder and grabs a fistful of Mark's hair. "Ow," Mark happily fails to complain, and she hauls him in and kisses him over Chris's shoulder, pressing in so tightly he feels the pillowy give of her breasts and belly. Smacking her mouth off Mark's, Beth pretty much drags him to Chris before she lets go. "Hey," Mark murmurs in his ear, and Chris blinks up heavy lids to see Mark's shining eyes, to watch Mark purse his smile into a kiss. 

Mark's a little gentler about it than Beth was, suckling Chris's lower lip, caressing his mouth until he trembles uncontrollably with every little press and slide. Beth shoves on Chris's shoulder, squirming and huffing and satiny-damp under his hands, and Mark pulls his arm out from under them, kissing Chris the whole time as they shift him onto his back.

Beth bounces and Chris cries out, sure he'll come right then under the cushiony impact. Mark lets up on him to watch, tucking his arm under Chris's head, and reverently murmurs, "Boobies." Beth growls out a laugh, digging her fingers into Chris's shoulders, and he knows how gorgeous she looks when she's on top, the pointy jiggle of her high breasts and the slant of her fine eyebrows as she goes for it, but he absolutely can't open his eyes, pleasure crimping them shut tight. Beth slams down on him again and again, rippling tight around him, and he's gonna come. He can't not come. He tries to say something and pretty much just screams, arching his neck over Mark's arm and pressing his palms into Beth's hips as he pulses into her.

"Yeah, rrrgh," Beth says above him, slowing down, and Chris gasps as finally pries his eyes open to look up at her, hair swinging around her face, cheeks glowing pink and lips trembling, and he's still shaking and he wants her so much. He leans on Mark tucked all down his side, presses his lips shut around his thumb long enough to wet it, his gaze locking with Beth's as she smiles, until her eyes flutter shut in anticipation.

He reaches down and Mark inhales, he strokes his wet thumb over her clit and she gasps and rocks her hips just a little and he hisses between his teeth at the intensity of it, feeling her clutch and shift around his oversensitive cock. "Yeah, Chris, fuck," she breathes, throwing her head back, all her fine sleek lines trembling under his touch. She comes for him, spilling out little broken noises, and he can't help but moan in aching sympathetic delight.

"Damn," Mark murmurs appreciatively, and as Beth melts down onto Chris's chest she reaches over to pat Mark's mouth and curve her fingers along his jaw. 

Mark hums, kissing her palm, and smiles, and Chris lets his eyes fall shut as he smiles too, as Beth wiggles sinuously under his hands, tucking her silky head under his chin, rocking her hips so he slips out of her. She slides her thigh between his, nestled just so against his tackle, and he feels completely sated and pleasantly heavy in the best way.

"Should get dressed," Beth mutters into Chris's collarbone, and he just feels her breathe under his hands and forgets to reply..

"Yeah, sure," Mark answers, sarcasm edging his sleep-thickened voice, and drapes a hand between Chris's on Beth's back. 

That reminds him to agree, at least. "Really." Even if he doesn't move a single millimeter, and Mark smirks in vindication. "Where'd our clothes end up?"

"Fuck clothes." Mark snuggles in, Beth murmurs a drowsy little noise, and they all continue failing to get up. "Don't even fuck the regs. Stay right here."

"Urgencies," Chris mutters, with increasing hypocrisy.

"So the reactor burps." Mark hooks his pinky over Chris's. "Beth can skip down the hall naked like a nerdy nymph." Beth snorts and Chris helplessly smiles. 

" 'M wearing _your_ pants," Beth mumbles. "You can skip naked."

"Whee," Mark agrees, but his very next breaths slide into sleeping regularity. Chris thinks about trying to pull the discarded blanket up with his toes, feels Mark relax beside him and Beth atop him, and lets himself drift off, awash with contentment.

* *** * 

Chris wakes up on his stomach with the blanket draped across his back, to the bunk shaking, to Beth's determined huffing and an unmistakable wet slapping sound and ... the squeak of foam soundproofing? He's still not prepared for the magnificently pornographic sight of Beth vigorously fucking Mark, riding him where he leans against the padded wall. He's the one with the dick, but she's definitely the one driving, her heel braced on his thigh as she goes for it.

Her intricate folds are just so drenched and gleaming pink, ruffling up and down his slick red dick, and it's one thing to know the mechanics and another to watch them lusciously live and up close. Chris's mouth has fallen open and he has to shut it before he actually starts drooling. It takes him a bit to look up, running his gaze over Beth's damp curves, and up past her breasts high and bouncing with effort, to see her tender lips parted and her eyes crinkled shut and her hair swinging either side of her reddened cheeks as she hangs onto Mark overhand, her arm wrapped behind his neck, her hoarse voice rising thrust by thrust.

Parted lips pulled up sideways, wet eyelashes overhanging his glinting eyes, Mark smirks past Beth's cheek, right at Chris. "Sleeping beauty woke up," he puffs into her ear, pressing his lips there as she shudders, and she hauls up her eyelids just enough to look at Chris, her panting mouth widening into a gorgeous smile. 

"Holy fucking shit," Chris swears inadequately and Mark and Beth both laugh, gasping through it. Beth tips her head back on Mark's shoulder, her eyes slipping shut again, and Mark presses kisses down her throat and over her shoulder, looking at Chris the whole time.

Beth writhes a little faster, a little harder, breathing out, "Ah!" in a cracking voice, and Chris has no idea why he's lying there so far away from them, pressing his achingly hard cock against the shaking bunk instead of warm beautiful skin. He flounders up, knocking away the blanket, and Mark's teeth glint against Beth's neck. Chris lunges for them, wrapping one arm around both their waists, feeling the matching flex and surge as they move together. Shaping the other hand to Beth's cheek, he wedges his thighs around Mark's and kisses her as gently as he can manage.

Mark licks a warm swipe up Chris's throat as Beth digs her strong narrow fingers into his bicep and shoves up into the kiss, eagerly bouncing between him and Mark, shuddering towards the brink. Chris can't stop kissing to watch, so he has to feel it. He brushes his palm down her belly's shallow curve and between her supple thighs, settling his hand just lightly over the join of their bodies, feeling her thrusting up and down Mark's slicked length. Mark hisses against his jaw and Beth keens into his mouth, and Chris brushes his thumb over her rigid clit so she shudders, does it again to feel her tense under his palm as Mark curses fervently over his ear. "Jesus haploid monocot _Christ_ ," Mark pants, overlapping Beth's rising cries as she comes, her fingers crimped around Chris's shoulder, her teeth closing on his bottom lip in a bright dashed line.

"Yeah," Chris mumbles, muffled by Beth's sweet lax mouth as she gasps down from the height. He presses his fingers behind Mark's shoulder blade and Mark gropes down his back, thrusting up desperately into Beth under his hand, and her voice breaks high on each breath as she pulls her mouth away to tuck her face into Chris's shoulder, her whole body quivering between them. 

"Fuck," Mark whimpers, "Fuck, fuck, I gotta, I --"

"Yeah," Beth agrees, damp silky strands stuck across her forehead as she turns to Mark. "Yeah, go ahead, come on." She's breathless and glowing pink and Chris's heart swells impossibly against his sternum. 

Mark thunks his head back against the padding, parted lips pulling into that openmouthed grin again. "Please," he mumbles, his hand sliding up Chris's back, gripping his shoulder, his nape. Taking the hint, Chris leans in.

He's a moment too late, watching Mark's eyelids crease as he groans from the bottom of his lungs. Exhaling little encouraging noises, Beth presses her cheek to Chris's shoulder as they watch together, every crinkle edging Mark's eyes and each ripple across his face, how his lips tremble and the lines fall in between his eyebrows as he comes, shuddering out to the ends of his hair and his clutching fingers, all down his thighs between Chris's splayed knees.

They watch him, raptly, until he slumps back, until his forehead smooths out and his open mouth pulls up at both corners. Beth lets out a happy little laugh. Chris hums agreement and leans in the rest of the way to kiss him. Mark kisses back lavishly, all savory warmth, sliding his hand up behind Chris's neck to tug a handful of his hair before letting go.

He grips Chris's shoulder, Beth wraps her arms behind his ribs, both of them clinging as if Chris would ever go anywhere. "Been training him?" he asks, brushing his lips across Beth's forehead, watching Mark's sleepy-eyed grin. 

She hums into a giggle, kissing his collarbone. "Yeah," Mark puffs, "I got 'sit' and 'roll over."

"We're working on 'stay'." Beth turns her head and Mark nuzzles down the side of her face to kiss her, soft and lingering. Chris watches them kiss and feels them shift and breathe, and has almost everything he wants in life right here in his arms.

Still kissing Mark, Beth slides her hand down Chris's side, mapping his flank with clever fingers, and winds them around his dick, jolting him from his balls outwards through every last inch of him, knocking a guttural cry out of him. 

Beth laughs breathily, Mark chuckles low, and they turn both pairs of shining eyes to Chris. "C'mere," she murmurs, pulling a long slow stroke on him.

"God yeah," Chris whimpers, about to lean back, "just --" but Beth shakes her head, warmly mesmerizing as she shifts and grins. "-- here? We'll squish Mark --"

Who squeezes Chris's shoulders, tugging him forward. "Squish away," he offers cheerily, "I wanna feel this." 

"C'mon already." Beth swings up her knee and drapes it delicately over Chris's elbow, leaning back against Mark's chest, her eyebrows sharp with challenge above her daring grin. Mark rubs a hand down his back and Chris's eyes fall shut as he pushes forward to both of them.

He pushes into Beth, her arms tightening as Mark's hands peel off, pushing her up against Mark as they all groan together. "Jesus, _again_ ," Mark mutters, sounding dazed, grabbing a solid handful of Chris's ass and palming his nape. Beth growls and bounces and tightens everything around Chris, and all he can do is moan and press his hand flat besides Mark's waist, roll his hips and lose himself in her, in both of them.

Every layer of Chris's mind melts together into irrelevance, nothing in his head but the delight fountaining up his spine, Mark's thighs firm alongside his, Beth slick and hot and gorgeous fluttering around him, moaning into and out of smeared tingling kisses. Everything falls away but the shuddering bunk and the squeaking foam and her fierce tender bounce between him and Mark, their four arms wrapped around him, hands clutching him at nape and waist, shoulder and thigh. Chris loses all sense of time until he comes suddenly, almost unexpectedly, with Beth kissing him down to his soul and Mark's lips pressed to his forehead and his whole body awash with pleasure. 

The tide recedes heartbeat by heartbeat, pulling every last drop of his strength with it. Chris slumps, but Beth and Mark hold him up and ease him back. His arms slide through their careful hands, broad and slender both, as he flops prone and sucks down air like it's going out of style, his ears still tingling, his skin wet and buzzing. 

Chest heaving sweetly, forehead tight with concentration, Beth wiggles back, plants her knees, and follows Chris down, slumping onto his chest, her hips slung across Mark's knees where they press Chris's side. Gasping a little too, Mark stays tipped back against the wall, looks down ostentatiously at Beth draped across his lap, the pert curve of her upturned ass, then up at Chris with that lopsided grin.

Chris helplessly, happily grins back.

"Ugh," Beth moans into the side of his neck. "We're a mess." Chris hums a noncommittal answer and tucks his arm a little tighter across her back and waist. They're both sheened with sweat, he can feel his thighs slippery down to his knees. They really are a mess. But he's gone limp all over, flattened like he's pulling a steady five gees, like he never wants to move from under Beth and beside Mark, like he wants to sleep for a week. He just yawns, and Beth snorts over his collarbone.

Mark yawns too, and puts his hands on his hips, grinning wide. "I spooged all over both of you," he announces. "How's that for making my mark?"

They both groan, which is much kinder than Mark deserves. "Oh my God," Beth mutters, "you're disgusting." Chris doesn't want to let go of her, so he drags up his far hand to flip Mark off.

Mark grins wider into another yawn. Chris's chest swells with warmth even space can't steal. He has to let his eyes fall shut and clear his throat twice before he can firm his voice up into, "Then you can wash the sheets." Beth quivers with movement and Chris manages to crack one eye enough to see her flap a beckoning wave at Mark before dropping her hand again.

"After ecstasy, the laundry." Mark drags up the abused blanket as he lies down, tucking himself behind Beth like he had to Chris before, draping his arm across both of them. "So worth it."

Chris sighs, completely ready to crash with Beth tucked to his side and Mark's hand on his chest, except that his doctor-brain boots up just enough to prod him in the conscience. What was supposed to be a sensible status check comes out as a mumbled, "You okay?"

Mark hums. Beth grumbles. "Go to _sleep_. Both of you."

Chris pats a handful of her sleek skin. "Mmf, checking on my patient."

"Ooh, Doctor! Kinky." The snarky delight in Mark's voice makes Chris push his eyes open again, if just to roll them. Mark's eyes shine under his drooping eyelids, his smile nestled into Beth's hair. He looks like he's doing just fine.

"Shut up," Beth insists into Chris's neck, snuggling in a bit tighter. "It's two hours to wakeup and I'm not letting Rick drink all the coffee." 

"You're the one who ravished me against the wall," Mark murmurs into her hair. "I was just lying there innocently trying to get back to sleep."

"You woke me up," Beth replies without moving. "Being _cuddly_. Pointing out how cute this guy is when he's sleeping." Chris's grin stretches his cheeks. "Which is what we need to do. Good _night_." 

Mark laughs, quietly, drowsily. Beth elbows him and he laughs a little louder for just a few moments before fading to quiet. Beth snuffles over Chris's skin, dropping off to sleep, and he listens to her and Mark breathe, lets himself drift back into comfortable darkness.

He's nearly there, Beth's completely sacked out, when Mark softly calls his name. "Mmm?" It feels like too much trouble to open his eyes.

"Ask me again," Mark whispers, and now Chris does look over at him one more time. He's shifted his chin atop Beth's head, his forehead and Chris's nearly touching. 

Chris blinks, looking into Mark's warm crinkle-cornered eyes, and blinks again, and gets it. "How do you feel?"

Mark smiles brilliantly, and drops a kiss on Beth's hair. "Like a guy who's not alone anymore."

His heart too full to speak, Chris leans in that last centimeter, his forehead touching Mark's, and that's how they finally go back to sleep.

* *** * 

They sleep through morning call, and don't even get up when Lewis raps the door a second time. It takes her threat of a bucket of cold water to get them to disentangle themselves, and they can only fit one at a time in the shower no matter how hard they try. When Chris finally makes it to breakfast he finds Beth attempting to glare into her mug of tea while Rick sits grinning beside the empty coffee carafe and Mark shovels in a plateful of food. Alex is tuning them all out, reading something absorbing on his tablet as his fork steadily cycles. Lewis glances up from her own plate to roll her eyes expressively, and Chris shrugs an apology, standing in the doorway for another few seconds, taking it all in.

Yeah, he doesn't even mind missing the coffee. It's so, so worth it.


End file.
